When I first visited this sale, it said “Over a year left”
That was one week ago.
I returned, here, to give my experience/write up.
My order arrived as Motorola factory refurbished in a genuine Moto box with a yellow “RB” sticker on box end. Shrink wrapped and everything. It looks to be the same box as my (2023) Amazon order only having a yellow “RB” sticker, and were manufactured a few months earlier.
This order curiously has a TracFone logo imprinted on the back of the phone. Same logo as on the back of my family’s TracFone “hey, we’re phasing out 3G - here’s your free LTE replacement” (Moto XT2005DL).
I wonder if all the units in this batch were sourced from TracFone, and marked as refurbished, since Moto apparently undid the usual Android TracFoniness (like a default MyAccount and MySites apps that reside on family’s XT2005DL)?
The first Moto from the this order (after enabling Developer Mode, …) presented with me with a togglable OEM Unlock slider. Easy peasy. Rebooted to the bootloader, got the unlock code, got the key back from Moto (email), booted custom recovery, booted back to Slot B and - great! It behaved just like my 2023 new order from Amazon.
One down.
While the first Moto from Woot had no signs of any existing carrier configuration, the second Moto showed this below “Build number”:
Update carrier configuration
Check for new device configuration
Current version 3.0
This second Moto required insertion of an active SIM card, only then OEM Unlock permitted me to toggle it.
Now available, I toggled it on, removed the SIM card, and rebooted to the bootloader, only to have it tell me it was still locked.
I booted back to factory Android, repeated inserting the SIM, waited for OEM Unlock, toggled it on, left the SIM card in across the reboot to bootloader, got the unlock code, entered the unlock key, it accepted it, and I then booted a custom recovery, booted to slot B (default), and…
→ black screen ←
Did I somehow brick a $99 (Woot) Moto despite having zero issues on my original 2023 (admittedly fully unlocked new) and the first one in this order?
Not the greatest situation. Happiness plummeted to zero.
Once a Moto has been issued an unlock code from Moto, Moto discontinues any warranty. Woot might, but Moto definitely won’t.
I spent the next three hours trying getting it out of something called “QDL mode.”
There are some helpful examples for other Moto models all over the place, and all the necessary “binary blobs” to get it back in shape, but none yielding success when absent a USB2.0 port.
No amount of modern USB (3 or newer) computers cooperated with the qboot tool. It would identify the Moto’s CPU (id) and serial, and bail with “Failed identify board. Wrong package?”
After resurrecting a laptop with a USB2.0 port, and giving it all the stuff needed to get the phone back to normal, qboot sent singleimage successfully the first time.
May this help others who accidentally tripped over the remaining Tracfoniness (device lock).
Sigh of relief blown.
__
I’m sad LOS has nothing yet mature as this Pixel XL from Woot in 2019 is still being used by family and current with Android 15. Wait for it… 